Wait, where is the guilt? Oh, don't you see: The guilt of the fact that all these men have spoken with concern about Palestinian human rights. So say the Jewish Democrats, on Arianna Huffington's liberal site.
Now here is my pal Richard Silverstein defending J Street from charges that it is pro-Palestinian:
Caroline Glick, the doyenne of the wild-eyed pro-Israel right, has weighed in with her typical propaganda, labelling [J Street]
“pro-Palestinian.” Which is interesting since J Street’s entire
political agenda is deliberately framed in a context that largely, and
carefully avoids directly addressing the Palestinian issue or
Occupation (a strategy I don’t necessarily approve of but certainly
understand given attacks like hers). [emphasis Weiss's]
I grew up being proud of Jewish achievement in the arts, the sciences, and politics. My mother said the three greatest minds of the previous century were Jewish: Marx, Freud, and Einstein. (God bless my mom, I had no idea who Herzl was).
Well, alongside the other great Jewish achievements, we must put this negative one: For more than 40 years, and really 60, American Jewish organizational life has been dedicated to a simple principle: removing the claim of Palestinian human rights from American public life. That is a staggering achievement, but it took place, and it is underlined by those anecdotes. J Street bursts forth as the alternative Israel lobby (and yes I celebrate a lot of what they've done), but this liberal organization cannot open their mouths about the pogroms against Palestinians. Not a word. If you can find one morally-respectable word about Palestinian suffering, checkpoints, killings, poisoning of goats on their website, please tell me, I will give you a chocolate bar. And then there's Forman of the NJDC endorsing the idea, on a liberal soapbox no less, that Brzezinski and Malley and Bonior and Baker and Scowcroft are bad men–because they are men who cared about Palestinian suffering.
This is the achievement, make no mistake about it. In a country that is supposed to be tuned to human rights abuses in other countries, and often is, to America's great credit, politicians are simply not allowed to talk about Palestinian suffering. Never. And newspapers only occasionally. Walt and Mearsheimer were lashed for doing so, Jimmy Carter was exiled. Arabists in the State Department have been silenced for a long time. The victims are always to blame. And I insist this is a Jewish accomplishment. For it comes out of the Jewish narrative of victimization, combined with Jewish success in the U.S.
Are all Jews this way? Of course not. There are countless exceptions, beginning with the late great Robbie Friedman of the Nation, and Richard Silverstein, and David Bloom who sends me the latest news on abuses of human rights. Righteous Jews. They're growing in number by the day. But organizational life is one flavor. Even white-knight J Street genuflects to that orthodoxy. And not just out of fear of one crazed doyenne, but of 100s of 100os of them, well-connected. Some day this record will be taught in history books, as a tragic herd prejudice.
P.S. A related note: Earlier today I ridiculed Ralph Seliger's claim that Meretz USA has spoken out against the Occupation (it's in a post with Biden in the headline, I've lost my connection to my website). Ralph has written to me in anger about this. Here is my challenge to Ralph: Show me the language. Show me the occasions that your group has spoken out against the pogroms against Palestinians. If you can, I will happily eat my words.
Seliger's mealy-mouthed zio-schmooze deserved ridicule, and I can't believe he has the chutzpah to complain.
You should also challenge him to show you the occasions when his group has called for withholding US aid until Israel complies with US policy. After all, he insists he's not part of any Israel lobby.
'And not just out of fear of one crazed doyenne, but of 100s of 100os of them, well-connected. Some day this record will be taught in history books, as a tragic herd prejudice.'
Yes, every battlement manned by believers who look and talk just like us, but who think very differently indeed. A cadre raised for a mission, one which is faltering badly after vastly over-reaching in Iraq. They are desperate.
Part of their failure will lie in the too-comprehensive nature of their success. They are literally everywhere, palpably trying to control the flow of acceptable opinion, but Iraq and Wall St have shaved the scales off of a million eyes (eyes that to be honest only bother to open rarely, when it gets hot outside) and where once their hasbara could pass unnoticed under a welter of infotainment (Britney, sharks, storms, closeted pastors or Republicans), now they are doing their thing with the spotlight trained on them, and the desperation of potential failure has exposed the intolerance that lives under the carefully polished, all-American sheen.
Another great piece Phil. Simple and powerful, but for some people unwelcome ideas, plainly put. You once talked of Barack Obama's JFK-like capacity for cool, even coldness of thought on matters of moment. I seem to recall you placing yourself in the warm/hot category which may be true with less important issues, but on this central one the bracing chill of your common sense makes a startling contrast to frantic hair-splitting and empty rhetorical gambits that emerge from the overheated machinery inside the heads of the Seligers and Wittys, and all those others standing point in the American discourse for the interests of another country, ready to do battle with reason and decency, without limit so far as I can see.
'And not just out of fear of one crazed doyenne, but of 100s of 100os of them, well-connected. Some day this record will be taught in history books, as a tragic herd prejudice.'
Yes, every battlement manned by believers who look and talk just like us, but who think very differently indeed. A cadre raised for a mission, one which is faltering badly after vastly over-reaching in Iraq. They are desperate.
Part of their failure will lie in the too-comprehensive nature of their success. They are literally everywhere, palpably trying to control the flow of acceptable opinion, but Iraq and Wall St have shaved the scales off of a million eyes (eyes that to be honest only bother to open rarely, when it gets hot outside) and where once their hasbara could pass unnoticed under a welter of infotainment (Britney, sharks, storms, closeted pastors or Republicans), now they are doing their thing with the spotlight trained on them, and the desperation of potential failure has exposed the intolerance that lives under the carefully polished, all-American sheen.
Another great piece Phil. Simple and powerful, but for some people unwelcome ideas, plainly put. You once talked of Barack Obama's JFK-like capacity for cool, even coldness of thought on matters of moment. I seem to recall you placing yourself in the warm/hot category which may be true with less important issues, but on this central one the bracing chill of your common sense makes a startling contrast to frantic hair-splitting and empty rhetorical gambits that emerge from the overheated machinery inside the heads of the Seligers and Wittys, and all those others standing point in the American discourse for the interests of another country, ready to do battle with reason and decency, without limit so far as I can see.
Given that Bonior was Congress's most prominent (maybe only genuine) social-justice Catholic, I call anti-Catholicism on these clowns.
Phil,
Meretz, Meretz USA and their legacy organizations have been fighting for social justice in Israel and against the occupation for the last 40 years, during which time you've basically done squat about these issues. Based on your own words, you don't really seem to give a rats ass about the actual people in the region – Israeli or Palestinian. You only care about how it affects you as an assimilated American Jew. That's your perogative. Good on ya for that. However, to act so disrespectfully towards people like Ralph Seliger, who have been fighting against the Right Wing in Israel for so many years, is really a poor show. People like Ralph have been trying to work internally to change things. They are far more serious in their efforts at finding a solution to the injustices in Israel than you are, yet you seek to mock him. Go easy on the megalomania Phil and every now and then it would behoove you to tell some of your extremist posters to toss off. While you have some thoughtful folks posting here, you have some real creeps as well.
A discursive red line
By Claude Kandlyotl
BRUSSELS – Let me start with two Belgian stories – unfortunately, not funny ones.
The first concerns Andre Flahaut, the Socialist defense minister of this country from 1999 to 2007. This past May, the man, who is not known to be a political genius, participated in a kind of anti-Israel street theater in the city of Nivelles. The event, organized by a far-left NGO on the town's weekly outdoor market day, was a reenactment of the nakba, as the Palestinians call the renaissance of Jewish statehood in the Land of Israel. The participants, duly divided into Palestinian victims and the Israeli soldiers who brutally forced them into trucks on their way to exile, were outfitted in kaffiyehs and army uniforms, respectively, and they performed enthusiastically under the eyes of bewildered Sunday shoppers.
Flahaut, who wasn't in costume, took the stage during the masquerade to deliver an emotional speech about justice and injustice, peace and war, the Socialist struggle for good against evil. In his comments, Flahaut made a direct link between Israel's occupation of the West Bank and his own ongoing fight against any form of "Nazism." The umbrella body of Belgian Jewry (CCOJB) in return accused him of delegitimizing Israel and described his remarks as anti-Semitic.
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Flahaut took the unprecedented step of suing the CCOJB for slander (the case is still in court). And the reaction of the Belgian political class and media was unequivocal – silence, except for some criticism of the Jewish community for taking a position against free speech. The entire business had a farcical quality.
The second event was less farcical, but perhaps more revealing. Last July, I interviewed Louis Michel for the Belgian Jewish monthly Contact J. Unlike Flahaut, Michel, a leader of the Liberal Party, is a highly regarded statesman, a former Belgian foreign minister and the current European commissioner for development and humanitarian aid. We talked about human rights in the Palestinian territories. Michel claimed that the Israeli government shows no understanding of the matter and tramples the basic rights of the Palestinians. After a long tirade against Israeli actions in the West Bank, he burst into a passionate plea against what he saw as an intolerable mixing up by many Jews between legitimate criticism of a government and an assault against the very existence and legitimacy of the people and state this government represents: "I am a victim of this confusion, in the way I am accused of anti-Semitism each time I speak out against Israel's policies. I always was, I still am and I'll always be a genuine friend of Israel and of the Jewish community of my country, but I can no longer tolerate being insulted by members of the community."
These two tales are typical of the gap of understanding that divides Belgian Jews, indeed European Jews in general, and the national communities they belong to. The Jews often feel lonely, even abandoned, when they hear Israel subjected to public criticism, and they react angrily. Most politicians and commentators in turn fail to perceive anything but paranoia in their response. Michel and Flahaut genuinely do not see themselves as anti-Semitic, and believe they are sincere friends of Israel and the Jewish people. The Jews, on the other hand, are shocked by their attitudes toward Israel, and tend to see them both as enemies, who conceal their hatred of Jews under the cloak of opposition to Israel's government.
To be be clear: Whatever his intentions, Flahaut's comparison of Israel to Nazi Germany unequivocally falls under the general criteria of anti-Semitism, as defined in the working paper of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. Michel, on the other hand, is in more of a grey area, as he has never been associated with actions or comments delegitimizing Israel or the very right of the Jews to political autonomy.
The Belgian political class does not understand the sensitivity of the Jewish community, which tends to see verbal attacks against "their" state as an avatar of the old threats, rooted in old prejudice, against their people. The Jews often do not grasp the difference between criticism of a sovereign state whose policies might be considered problematic – and sheer anti-Semitism. In this gap of perceptions lies the problem.
This is not only a Belgian problem, not even a solely Jewish problem. In the whole of Europe, the strong national ethos has given way to an array of antagonistic communal feelings and demands. It feels as if the effort to create a set of values shared by all has vanished, only to be overcome by particular identities fighting each other for mutually exclusive recognition and respect.
What is to be done? To be sure, putting an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be helpful. In the meantime, one should negotiate red lines compatible with a democratic way of life.
We Jews need to be more prepared to accept criticism in line with what Israelis themselves direct toward their own regime. But by the same token, Europeans should be careful not to confuse Israel with the Jewish citizens of Europe. Nor should they confuse criticism with xenophobia, and must distinguish between rejection of the ephemeral policies of an elected Israeli government and an attempt to deny Jews the freedom to their own state. It is not okay to deny Jews the human rights to which every people is entitled; it is okay to debate achieving a solution that will restore and preserve the human rights of both Palestinians and Israelis. These should be the red lines of the public discourse.
Claude Kandiyoti is a Brussels-based entrepreneur and the publisher of Contact J, a monthly of the Belgian Jewish community.
Israel and the zionist, and the US as their foster parent, are on their way out. It's only a matter of time and that last straw falling. There will be no sympathy for them this time around.
"Israel holding talks with Spain in an attempt to stop arrest warrants against senior officials
Saturday October 04, 2008 02:44 by Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies
Israeli sources reported on Friday that the Israeli government is holding secret talks with the Spanish government in an attempt to stop the Spanish Legal System from issuing arrest warrants against seven senior Israeli security and military officials accused of committing war crimes against the Palestinian people.
Flag – Spain
A Spanish human rights group filed a case to the Spanish legal system against the former Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, former Shabak head Avi Dichter, former chief of staff Bogi Yaalon, former Air Force commander Dan Halutz, former chief of military operations Giora Island, and the former commander of the Southern Brigade Doron Almong.
The group demanded an international arrest warrant against the officials for committing war crimes after ordering the army to shell a civilian residential building in Gaza in order to assassinate, Salah Shihada ,a leader of the Al-Qassam Brigades,.
The assassination took place six years ago, Shihada was killed but fifteen civilians, including eleven children, were also killed and dozens of civilians were wounded.
After the case was filed to the Spanish High Court, the Spanish authorities handed Israel a secret letter demanding to be informed if Israel carried any acts against the accused and whether they are still in their positions or still have immunity.
Israeli newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, reported that Israeli officials predict that providing explanation to what was mentioned n the letter could affect the case.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry advised the accused officials to refrain from traveling to Spain and the Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, sent a letter to the Spanish Foreign Minister, Migael Moratinos, asking him to intervene in order to resolve this issue.
Livni claimed that this case is “political in nature and hostile towards Israel”.
Spain is one of the member countries of the International Court in The Hague and its constitution allows filing cases against persons accused of involvement in committing war crimes.
Also, according to convention of the Geneva Court any member country of the International Court is entitled to prosecute persons accused of committing war crimes anywhere in the world.
In is worth mentioning that several years ago, Israel snuck the former Israeli Chief of Staff, Dan Halutz, out of the UK after he was informed that the is a warrant to arrest him. Also, general Almong flew to the UK and when the plane landed, he was informed the there is a warrant for his arrest and he remained in the plane before flying out of the country."
"To be be clear: Whatever his intentions, Flahaut's comparison of Israel to Nazi Germany unequivocally falls under the general criteria of anti-Semitism, as defined in the working paper of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights."
No one gives a damn whether it falls under a working paper prodded on by the zionist.
The Israelis 'are' like the nazis …they behave and believe exactly as the nazis did.
And nothing is going to keep people from seeing it or making that comparison.
They are nazis, plain and simple.
American – you think Spain will prosecute Syrian murderers too?
http://www.2la.org/lebanon/ee/terrorlb.htm#TerrorLb
If not, why not?
American – you're a nazi.
'To be be clear: Whatever his intentions, Flahaut's comparison of Israel to Nazi Germany unequivocally falls under the general criteria of anti-Semitism'
Bullshit it does. I think Israeli settlement expansion is related to the Nazi concept of lebensraum; am I an antisemite? I also think that the apparatus of the Israeli state's interface with it's occupied population resembles apartheid, and that Israel's tolerance of violent and antidemocratic extremism by Jewish terrorists echoes some Islamic states' implicit support of the Islamofascists in their midst. All this makes me antisemitic enough to be prosecuted criminally in Europe.. have I got that right?
'unequivocally falls under the general criteria of anti-Semitism, as defined in the working paper of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights'
Gee I wonder who might be behind that initiative. I would speculate that Jewish groups have applied enough pressure to the EU to have this stupid and counterproductive measure adopted. What an antisemitic thing to think! What does the working paper recommend for grade A Jew-hatred like that Eric? The gas chamber perhaps?
Offended? Good.
Why isn't antisemitism rolled into some sort of cover-all statement on racism in general for this exercise? Is it somehow different from garden variety prejudice? Does that specialness lie in the antisemite or the semites themselves?
'While you have some thoughtful folks posting here, you have some real creeps as well'
I can go along with that.
Some of us will not have our thinking on important issues bullied by second rate minds into an acceptance of dangerous nonsense. Nonsense that simply licences one form of prejudice under the rubric of dealing with another.
"Nonsense that simply licences one form of prejudice under the rubric of dealing with another. "
A wonderful principle. Practise it please.
Codifying the comparison between prewar Germany and current Israel as illegal, the lawmakers follow the best traditions of Communist Block countries during the Cold War. You do not insult dear leader, you do not bring the name of your country into the disrepute.
This is really a frontal attack on free speech.
It reminds me of some polish politicians who spluttered with indignation when the support for homes for battered women came made it into the public arena.
The horror of Poland looking bad in the international arena was infinitely greater than the horror of being complicit in ignoring abuse of women in Poland.
If I say that woman beaten by her polish husband hurts as much as muslim husband I guess I am engaged in lawful discourse.
But if I claim that mother in Gaza who is seeing her child getting sicker with malnourishment is suffering as much as Jewish mother seeing her child getting sicker with malnourishment in Warsaw Ghetto, am I breaking the law?
Actually, the effort is to convey the reality accurately.
Complete enough to actually understand what is going on.
Anger is easy to stimulate. Lizards do it. Thought is a little harder.
I am proud of you Phillip.
Sorry.
Mr. Weiss.
"To be be clear: Whatever his intentions, Flahaut's comparison of Israel to Nazi Germany unequivocally falls under the general criteria of anti-Semitism, as defined in the working paper of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights."
Uh… what?
EXCUSE ME?
"Anger is easy to stimulate. Lizards do it." — Richard Witty
Most folks who suffer from scoliodentosaurophobia experience fear or disgust upon encountering one of the little long-tailed green fellers.
In your case, maybe it would be better to stay indoors, rather than foaming at the mouth and hollering obscenties at the harmless little reptiles cavorting about your garden.
Oh … you ARE indoors, you say? Oh, my … Houston, we have a problem …
I have never understood these terms in the way they are used i.e. why does
pro-palestinian have to be anti-israeli or vice versa. Why can't pro-palestinian be pro-israeli too? What one is looking for and works towards is JUSTICE for both the peoples and and that is NOT an OXYMORON. Only when there is justice for both sides will there be peace and security. One hopes that people who REALLY care about Israel and Palestine will break away from this restricting rhetoric and look at the wider picture and have a vision for the future for Palestinians and Israelis who have more things in common and fewer differences!
Weiss: "alongside the other great Jewish achievements, we must put this negative one: For more than 40 years, and really 60, American Jewish organizational life has been dedicated to a simple principle: removing the claim of Palestinian human rights from American public life."
Between that dubious "achievement," and the other of being a decisive player (per Walt/Mearsheimer) in the imperial scheme to lie Americans into the Iraq war, history will record the Zionists as key to the destruction of American integrity, legitimacy and ultimately its credibility as a benign super power.
The lesson going forward for future super powers? If you want to slowly destroy your enemies in a kind of dry-rot process from within, and simultaneously save yourself, send them your Zionists.
What is the direct conflation of appeasement of NAZI Germany with
the current situation in the middle east? This is the narrative analogy
peddled, bought lock, stock, and barrel by the American government allegedly in the interest of Joe Sixpack?
Witty?
American – you're a nazi.
Posted by: American2 | October 04, 2008 at 12:28 AM>>>>>>>>>>
Actually I prefer to call myself a pro America anti zionist and anti Israel terrier.
BTW yesterday I got one of those Obession DVD's in the mail, so did several other neighbors evidently….I mentioned it to one neighbor who said he threw his in the trash…which I think reflects the American disgust with the zionist and other political trash in general prevading our country.
I went on a hunt to find out who is behind this and sure enough it is our US zionist nazis:
http://ipsnorthamerica.net/news.php?idnews=1705
Neo-cons, Ex-Israeli Diplomats Push Islamophobic Video
Ali Gharib and Eli Clifton*
WASHINGTON, 24 Sep (IPS) – A group of hard-line U.S. neo-conservatives and former Israeli diplomats, among others, are behind the mass distribution, ahead of the November U.S. presidential election, of a controversial DVD that critics have denounced as Islamophobic.
The group, the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET), is working with another organisation called the Clarion Fund, which produced the 60-minute video and is itself tied closely to an Israeli organisation called Aish Hatorah.
The Fund is currently distributing some 28 million copies of the DVD through newspaper inserts in key electoral ''swing'' states — states like Michigan, Ohio, and Florida that, according to recent polling, could go either way in November's presidential election.
According to Delaware incorporation papers, the Clarion Fund is based at the same New York address as Aish Hatorah, a self-described 'apolitical' group dedicated to educating Jews about their heritage.
The Clarion Fund's street address as listed on the group's website and a DVD mailer for the film is apparently not a physical address, but rather a 'virtual address' that goes to a post office box in New York City.
Critics allege that the movie 'Obsession' is 'hate propaganda' which paints Muslims as violent extremists and, among other things, explicitly compares the threat posed by radical Islam to that of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
At least two major metropolitan newspapers solicited to insert the paid advertisement into their product have refused to do so because of a perceived bias in the film.
'Despite the perilous state of American newspapers, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch advertising department took an ethical stand and refused to distribute the DVD of a film that for two years has troubled American Muslims,' wrote Tim Townsend, a reporter at Missouri's most influential newspaper earlier this month after it rejected the ad.
While the initial press reports about the mass distribution focused on the Clarion Fund's financing role, it was EMET that organised and oversaw the distribution, EMET's spokesman, Ari Morgenstern, told IPS. Morgenstern, a former press officer for the Israeli embassy here, said he contacted IPS at the Clarion Fund's request.
EMET, according to a recent press release, is 'a non-partisan, non-profit organisation dedicated to policy research and analysis on democracy and the Middle East.'
According to filings made in compliance with the organisation's tax-exempt 501(c)3 status, 'the organisation hosts seminars, debates and educational films featuring Middle East experts in order to educate policymakers and the public at large on the common threats facing Israel and the United States.'
Morgenstern told IPS that EMET was 'partnered with the Clarion Fund' on what he called the 'Obsession Project' which he identified as 'an initiative of EMET'. He declined to name the Project's donors. A spokesman for the Clarion Fund, Gregory Ross, has also refused to name the Fund's donors, whose identity remains a mystery.
Morgenstern also declined to specify the cost of the DVD distribution, but did say, 'it costs a great deal — it's a multi-million-dollar effort.' Outside experts have estimated the cost of the operation, including reproduction and distribution, at between 15 million dollars and 50 million dollars.
Like hard-line neo-conservatives, EMET opposes any land concessions to Palestinians and takes other hard-line positions identified with Israel's right-wing Likud Party and the ''Settler Lobby'' there. EMET's website says, 'We regard ourselves as 'intellectual revolutionaries''.
The group's acronym, EMET, mirrors the name of a predecessor to the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies, which was called Emet. The word means 'truth' in Hebrew.
Two weeks ago, EMET sponsored a seminar series on Capitol Hill named for the controversial multi-billionaire casino and hotel magnate Sheldon Adelson, a major donor to right-wing Zionist organisations in the U.S.; the far-right lobby group, Freedom's Watch; and the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), whose efforts to persuade Jewish voters that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is aligned with radical anti-Israel forces in the Islamic world have drawn strong criticism from the mainstream Jewish press here.
EMET's board of advisers includes a list of familiar neo-conservative figures, as well as three former Israeli diplomats, including a former deputy chief of mission in Israel's Washington embassy.
The group is headed by Sarah Stern, who began her activism on Israeli issues in opposition to the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and Palestinians. She made a career out of her activism in the far-right Zionist Organisation of America (ZOA) as its national policy coordinator from 1998 through 2004.
Notable members of the advisory board include prominent hard-line neo-conservatives, including former U.S. U.N. Amb. the late Jeane Kirkpatrick; Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum; and the Hudson Institute's Meyrav Wurmser, the Israeli-born spouse of Vice President Dick Cheney's former top Middle East adviser, David Wurmser.
Other prominent neo-conservative members of the board include Centre for Security Policy (CSP) president Frank Gaffney; former CIA chief James Woolsey; and Heritage Foundation fellows Ariel Cohen and Nina Shea, who has also served for years on the quasi-governmental U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom.
The U.S.-born and -educated hard-line deputy managing editor of the Jerusalem Post and senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at Gaffney's CSP, Caroline Glick, is also an adviser.
Glick, Pipes, and Walid Shoebat, a 'reformed' terrorist and EMET adviser, are all featured as experts in 'Obsession'.
Also among the top names of listed advisers to EMET are three Israeli diplomats. Two of them, Ambassadors Yossi Ben Aharon and Yoram Ettinger, were among the three Israeli ambassadors whom then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin referred to as 'the Three Musketeers' when they lobbied Washington in opposition to the Oslo accords. Indeed, Stern began her career at the behest of three unnamed Israeli diplomats who were based in Washington under Rabin's predecessor, Yitzhak Shamir, according to EMET's website.
Ettinger was at one time the chairman of special projects and is still listed as a contributing expert at the Ariel Centre for Policy Research, a hard-line Likudist Israeli think tank that opposes the peace process.
Ben Aharon was the director general — effectively the chief of staff — of Shamir's office.
The third Israeli ambassador, Lenny Ben-David, was appointed by Likud prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to serve as the deputy chief of mission — second in command — at the Israeli embassy in Washington from 1997 until 2000. Ben-David had also held senior positions at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee for 25 years and is now a consultant and lobbyist.
But EMET is not the only group involved in the 'Obsession' controversy to have direct ties to Israel.
The Clarion Fund has also been criticised for initially denying its ties to the Israel's Aish Hatorah, which were first disclosed publicly by an IPS investigation last year.
Honestreporting.com, an organisation set up by Aish Hatorah and also a client of Ben-David, admitted to IPS that it had aided the production of the film.
The Clarion Fund and Aish Hatorah are headed by twin Israeli-Canadian brothers Raphael and Ephraim Shore, respectively. The two groups appear to be connected as Clarion is incorporated in Delaware to the New York offices of Aish Hatorah.
'It seems that the Clarion Fund, from what we can tell, is just a virtual organisation that is a front for Aish Hatorah,' Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told IPS. 'They don't have staff, they don't have a physical address. Nothing.'
Little is known about the shadowy Clarion Fund, which is listed with the New York Secretary of State's office as a 'foreign not-for-profit foundation.' The group has rejected requests for information about its donors.
IPS has, however, uncovered one donor to the Clarion Fund, the Mamiye Foundation, which gave it 25,000 dollars in August of 2007, according to tax filings. Four Mamiyes, Charles M., Charles D., Hyman and Abraham, are listed as trustees on the forms.
According to filings with the New York Secretary of State, a contact listed for a Mamiye company is also the same man listed as a contact and counsel for the Clarion Fund — Eli D. Greenberg of the law firm Wolf, Haldenstein, Adler, Freeman and Herz.
Foreign nationals and companies, and domestic tax-exempt 501(c)3 non-profits are prohibited by federal election law from attempting to sway U.S. elections at any level through either contributions to campaigns or advocacy.
Morgenstern, EMET's spokesman, said that the DVD distribution only went to 'swing states' because media attention is focused there, and EMET is hoping to spark a public debate about the threats posed by' radical Islam'.
But CAIR has filed a complaint asking the Federal Election Commission to review the actions of the Clarion Fund both as a foreign entity and as a non-profit.
The complaint by Nadhira Al-Khalili, CAIR's legal counsel, asked that both charges be investigated.
*Jim Lobe contributed to this story
Then I came across Glen Greenwald's comment over at Salon…
"UPDATE: On an obviously related note, this was the exchange I found most striking in last night's Biden-Palin debate:
BIDEN: Gwen, no one in the United States Senate has been a better friend to Israel than Joe Biden. I would have never, ever joined this ticket were I not absolutely sure Barack Obama shared my passion. . . .
PALIN: But I'm so encouraged to know that we both love Israel, and I think that is a good thing to get to agree on, Sen. Biden. I respect your position on that.
They don't just consider Israel an ally. They don't just both support Israel. No, that's woefully inadequate. Instead: Biden has a "passion" for Israel and is its best friend, while Palin declares how excited she is that they "both love Israel."
They "love Israel"? I'm asking this literally, not rhetorically: is there any other country in the world where presidential candidates are required to — or even could — proclaim their "passion" and "love" for another country in a national election? And other than Israel, is there any country for which candidates for the American presidency could get away with proclaiming their "passion" and "love"? It's not exactly healthy or rational for someone who wants to lead one country to swear their fealty, passion and love for another.
– Glenn Greenwald
Greenwald is saying just what non jews have been saying and thinking every time they hear US politicans pledge alliegence to Israel. And since the jewish activity in this country is to support Israel at the expense of Americans…you figure it out.
I haven't read any anti semitic writtings but I have heard about what Henry Ford said about the jews…that they always lived as a "nation within a nation"..that throughout their history they have never been capable of being loyal to the countries they lived in and were loyal only to the jewish tribe. I also read what Elliot Abrams said in his book about jews needing to keep themselves "apart" from any other people but jews and apart from any country but Israel.
While this thinking isn't true of all jews it apparently is true for a large number of them. We see it in spades on internet sites from jewish commenters.
Why else would politicans have to pledge alliegence to Israel to get the jewish vote?
Phil talks about how smart jews are, I disagree, as a group they are so stupid they are running full steam ahead to their own destruction. It's only a hop, skip and jump from Americans listening to US politicans pledgeing alliegence to Israel to the final outrage the zionist push on Americans.
"I have never understood these terms in the way they are used i.e. why does
pro-palestinian have to be anti-israeli or vice versa. Why can't pro-palestinian be pro-israeli too? What one is looking for and works towards is JUSTICE for both the peoples and and that is NOT an OXYMORON. Only when there is justice for both sides will there be peace and security. One hopes that people who REALLY care about Israel and Palestine will break away from this restricting rhetoric and look at the wider picture and have a vision for the future for Palestinians and Israelis who have more things in common and fewer differences!"
Great comment.
Wow congrats Mr. Wiss, your readers are predominantly Nazis like "American" here.
Well done Sir!
Jojoba Timerman once opined that WWIII would most likely be caused by the use of an inappropriate analogy!
"To be be clear: Whatever his intentions, Flahaut's comparison of Israel to Nazi Germany unequivocally falls under the general criteria of anti-Semitism, as defined in the working paper of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights."
Does not the DVD "Obsession" likewise compare Muslims/Arabs to the Nazis?